[HN Gopher] Quick and dirty way to rip an eBook from Android
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Quick and dirty way to rip an eBook from Android
        
       Author : Amorymeltzer
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2021-12-27 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (shkspr.mobi)
 (TXT) w3m dump (shkspr.mobi)
        
       | yosito wrote:
       | Does anyone have any advice on how I can pay authors to get a
       | copy of their eBook without going through Amazon or Google? I
       | really don't want Big Tech or advertising companies profiling me
       | based on the books I read, but I absolutely want to pay authors
       | for their work.
       | 
       | I've considered torrenting books and just sending a check or
       | something to authors, but I'd love to find a better way.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | account-5 wrote:
       | I like this, it seems like the sort of thing I might do, except I
       | would probably spend way too long extracting the actual text and
       | attempting to produce a "better" pdf. I would probably fail, and
       | end up back with what this article produced.
        
       | rahimnathwani wrote:
       | I wonder if this works for apps that have set
       | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SECURE
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | Not without some kind of root access. But you can usually find
         | an app that doesn't have that flag and can still decode DRM.
        
           | goldcd wrote:
           | I just pop my phone on the photo-copier. Damp postit on the
           | ODF, auto-scrolls the screen on each cycle.
        
             | alufers wrote:
             | You are joking right? If not, I'd kill for a video of this
             | setup working.
        
           | alufers wrote:
           | You can either use root access or disassemble the app, remove
           | the flag, and then assemble it again. Impossible to do if the
           | app uses SafetyNet though.
        
         | Gigachad wrote:
         | That setting is essentially malware and it's a huge shame that
         | android added it.
        
           | tjoff wrote:
           | I'm flabbergasted that there at least isn't a developer-
           | option to disable it.
        
             | josephcsible wrote:
             | You can use things like
             | https://github.com/veeti/DisableFlagSecure to disable it if
             | you're willing to unlock your bootloader and install
             | Xposed. But yes, it's incredibly user-hostile of Google to
             | provide this without giving the user a built-in way to
             | override it.
        
               | tommek4077 wrote:
               | The point is, for every stupid DRM "solution" you come up
               | with, some technical capable guy will find a way to crack
               | this. Happens since more then 40 years in computer
               | sience.
        
         | Farbklex wrote:
         | You can still use the tool scrcpy to stream a video of the
         | screen via USB to a PC.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | I suppose this could be called the "semi-analog hole". I'd
       | probably analyse the app first because these protections are
       | usually quite trivial. I remember one a long time ago (PC-based),
       | which was basically a PDF "encrypted" using a short XOR key and
       | appended to the end of the executable.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-12-27 23:00 UTC)